The people around here seem to be dropping like flies since we have been here this time. It is probably an age thing with the village population being largely young and old with not a huge amount of people in between. A lot of the younger people, twenties+, leave the village to wrk in the cities etc and send money back to parents.The chap who has just died was the original village school teacher and was largely responsible for the building of the current village school. He was teaching that long ago he actually taught Jai !! Anyway he died a couple of days ago and the next few days are his funeral. Jai went yesterday to help prepare food etc for people who come to pay their respects throughout the day. Today is the funeral itself. People were always cremated on their own land, farm, by choice or in a small woodland on the edge of the village. Last year they built a new crematorium and announced that in future everyone would have to be cremated here. For some strange reason this chap is being allowed to be cremated on the family farm so they have backed down on their decree already - influential family I guess ...Late afternoon I know that the funeral has finished as a number of rockets are exploding in the sky in the direction of the farm.